Force-feeding is NOT an attempt to nourish or feed; rather, it is a a torture method, the brutal procedure has resulted in many deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in China's labour camps.
The force-feeding is most often carried out by labour camp staff with no medical training, or by criminal inmates who are coerced to assist.
Firm, unsanitised tubes are forced into a practitioner’s nose and into the stomach, often rupturing or damaging tissues; sometimes the tube enters the lungs instead.
The tubes are sometimes left in a practitioner’s stomach for days or weeks, causing severe infections, or pulled out and reinserted repeatedly.
The practitioners are often “fed” irritants such as highly concentrated salt water, hot pepper oil, boiling water, or detergent.
In summer 2003, the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp (in Baoding City, Hubei Province, north China) began force-feeding Falun Gong practitioners with human urine and excrement; the Chinese government awarded them for this innovation, and sent labour camp staff from around the country to learn this procedure.
Wang Yuzhi recalls her experience of being force-fed in China labour camp
“I vividly remember my first hunger strike at the Harbin City Detention Centre. In order to force-feed me, the doctors at the Harbin City Detention Centre used a metal clamp to pry open my teeth and then pushed a thick rubber tube down to my stomach. My mouth was filled with blood and my body was covered in bruises after every force-feeding. Several people were there to beat and subdue me for these force-feedings. They would pour two big bowls of cold water mixed with corn flour into me, saying that it was for ‘stretching the stomach’. When I screamed, the police were afraid of others hearing me. They ordered inmates to gag and beat me even more."
“Before they force-fed me for the first time, I saw them grab a female Falun Gong practitioner named Shang by the hair and knock her head against the wall and floor. When she was finally unconscious, they forced the tube into her nose to force-feed her. There was no sterilisation – they simply brushed the tube around in a basin, then forced it through her nose and down into her stomach. Then they injected ground corn grain mixed with cold water."
“After they’d finished with her, the two prison doctors turned around and looked at me. They stood there with their forceps and tools in their hands and said, ‘You see that? You’re next.’ After that, I was subjected to this kind of force-feeding every day in jail."
“They would beat us to the point where we were almost unconscious before tying our arms and legs down and forcing the tubes through our noses and down into our stomachs. We were tied up to prevent us from pulling the tubes out because of the excruciating pain."
“One day I heard the desperate cry of a man in the women’s ward. It was the husband of a Falun Gong practitioner named Ding Yanhong. He had begged to be able to visit her, and when he finally was allowed to come in, they force-fed her right in front of him. This man cried terribly while his wife struggled in pain.
“I always knew that if I would simply write a letter denouncing Falun Gong, denouncing its teachings and promise to never practise again, I would be released immediately. But if it is wrong to believe in ‘Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance’ ,what hope does humanity have? This persecution was forcing people to choose between their lives and their conscience. I knew that I was being forced to make that choice, and I chose my conscience because I knew that when good men and women renounce good, wholesome beliefs under pressure from a dictatorship, something much greater than us dies.” (source)
Gao Xianmin murdered by force-feeding
Policeman Zhu Wenyong directed four criminal inmates to stand on the practitioner's four limbs while other inmates forced the practitioner's mouth open with a toothbrush. They cut a plastic bottle into two halves and forced the open end of the bottle into the practitioner's mouth. They then poured a whole packet (500 grams) of salt into the bottle, mixed with only a little water. All of the Falun Gong practitioners on hunger strike were force-fed in this manner. Some were force-fed with one packet of salt and some with two packets of salt. Female practitioner Zhang Chunmei was once force-fed with two packets of salt. She could not move afterwards, remained unconscious for several days and nights, and lost control of her bowels and bladder. In spite of her condition, policeman Zhu Wenyong repeatedly came to the cell to kick her, and loudly claimed that she was pretending to be dead.
In the beginning, when they force-fed practitioner Gao Xianmin, one of the inmates witnessing the scene became frightened and fainted. Policeman Zhu Wenyong had the prisoner removed and replaced him with another one to continue the force-feeding. Gao Xianmin eventually died as a result of the brutal force-feeding.
After Gao Xianmin died, the 6-10 Office authorities in the Tianhe District spread rumours saying that Gao Xianmin had died from a heart attack. They also threatened Gao Xianmin's family members, and did not allowed them to disclose the truth (read the complete article)
Yang Mei, 23 years old, tortured to death by force-feeding
NEW YORK, October 25th, 2001 (Falun Dafa Information Centre) -- Four days ago, an elderly couple in China went to visit their daughter, Yang Mei, who was being held in a detention centre for her beliefs. They did not see her that day, nor will they ever see her again, for Yang Mei died earlier that morning becoming the 28th practitioner of Falun Gong to have died in Hebei Province due to torture suffered while in police custody. She was 23 years old.
Yang Mei worked in a bank in Cangzhou, Hebei Province. Those who knew her say she was an unpretentious and kind young woman. As a dedicated practitioner of Falun Dafa (Falun Gong), she was also a courageous person. This past summer, the police arrested her for handing out flyers containing information about what the Chinese communist regime is doing to carry out its persecution of people who practise Falun Gong.
The police in the Cangzhou Second Detention Centre where she was held forced Yang Mei to do hard labour and tried to make her write letters to guarantee that she would stop practising Falun Dafa. When she refused, they would tie her down by her wrists and ankles to an iron bed several days and nights at a stretch without a break. On October 10th, she went on a hunger strike to protest this torture. Sources say she was brutally force-fed through a thick tube in the afternoon of October 19th. She passed away around 6 o’clock the next morning, October 20th.
October 20th happened to be the day her parents would go to visit her at the detention centre, unaware that their daughter was already dead. The guards would reveal nothing about her situation, however, and sent them home. As soon as they got home, they received a call from the detention centre to go back. Back at the centre, the guards kept talking in circles until after 2 p.m., they finally informed her parents of her death.
Yang Mei’s parents were devastated, but it is unlikely they will find any recourse for their grief. Instructions from "higher authorities" state that if Yang Mei’s family requests an autopsy of her corpse, the corpse must be immediately, forcibly cremated, according to sources familiar with her case (source)
Zhang Guiqin, 37 years old
At the end of July 2000, Ms Zhang was arrested for delivering new Falun Gong articles to other practitioners. She was once again sent to Feidong Detention Centre and handcuffed in heavy leg irons. She and other practitioners started hunger strikes to protest prison guards kicking and beating them. The prison guards started to force-feed them again. After a prolonged hunger strike and forced feeding, Ms Zhang became very weak. She also was running a high fever. The detention centre officials sent her to the hospital for a check up. The doctor's diagnosis showed her lungs had been punctured due to the force-feeding. Fearful that she would die in the detention centre, they sent her home on August 24th as an infectious disease patient. Ms Zhang became so weak and thin after she was sent home that she couldn't get out of bed. She also had great difficulty talking. Even so, the State Prosecutor brought an accusation against her and the judge sent a clerk to Ms Zhang's home to investigate her. After taking a look at Ms Zhang, however, the clerk went away shaking his head. Ms Zhang's case was not further investigated because she was clearly near death.
On January 17th, 2001, at 1:03 p.m., Ms. Zhang passed away. She had endured inhuman tortures in Feidong Detention Centre and five additional months of pain and torment as an invalid in bed before she passed away. She left two daughters behind. One is 12 years old and the other is 9 years old (source).
Zhang Zhenzhong, 22 years old
Mr Zhang was an undergraduate student at the Business Administration School of the Shandong Industrial University, Jinan City, Shandong Province.
On January 1st, 2001, Mr. Zhang was arrested in Beijing because he appealed peacefully on behalf of Falun Gong. At the police station, the police hit him with eight electric batons simultaneously and burned him with cigarettes. This went on for almost twelve hours.
On May 17th, 2001, the police arrested Mr. Zhang again. The policemen used their fists and electric batons to hit sensitive areas on his body and repeatedly kicked him.
More than an hour later, he was so badly beaten that he began to vomit blood and his nose became bloody. The policemen tied him up with ropes and sent him to a jail cell. He began a hunger strike to protest the maltreatment.
On the sixth day, the policemen ordered the inmates to force-feed him. They handcuffed him to a chair and repeatedly tried to insert a feeding tube into his nose. On the fifth try, Mr Zhang lost consciousness and died from the force-feeding (source)
